


are you lonesome tonight?

by shinigamiroulette



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Greasers, Alternate Universe - The Outsiders (S. E. Hinton) Fusion, Chan and Felix are brothers, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Internalized Homophobia, M/M, Period-Typical Homophobia, Underage Smoking, also i call chan chris, but you don't have to know shit abt the outsiders, chan is tim, felix is curly, he's only mentioned tho, honestly i probably should have written the actual prose different to be really canonical but, it's an outsiders au basically, jeongin is johnny, jeongin makes a sex joke but we ain't gettin explicit in here dw, loosely speaking, what are a bunch of kpop dudes doing in midcentury oklahoma?? idk
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-25
Updated: 2019-07-25
Packaged: 2020-07-19 08:26:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19971007
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/shinigamiroulette/pseuds/shinigamiroulette
Summary: Jeongin has a shitty night. Felix is there.





	are you lonesome tonight?

**Author's Note:**

> sooo,,, I wrote this?? I don’t even know where this came from, honestly. I’m a chanlix supremacist and every other fic I’ve been working on (and unable to finish) has been chanlix but this is the one I was actually able to get done so!! I guess it’s my first skz fic!
> 
> for anyone who doesn’t know: The Outsiders is a book about greaser teenagers in midcentury Tulsa, Oklahoma. I tried to reflect that as much as possible in this fic (South Carthage is an actual street there, according to google), but there really isn’t much 50s/60s specific aside from some slang from the book and an attempt at period-typical homophobia.
> 
> I’m thinking of making this a series of disconnected oneshots, maybe, mostly because I desperately need badass gang leader Chan.
> 
> The title is from an Elvis song, because of course it is.

Summer was coming on fast.

Slowly but surely, the sun was dragging itself back into the northern hemisphere on fingers of clover blossoms and dandelions. It wasn’t a July night yet, not quite, but the light breeze dancing through the worn weave of Jeongin’s only jacket didn’t chill him to the bone anymore. The sidewalk no longer felt like ice through the worn left sole of his secondhand sneakers, and the bruises on his face didn’t throb like a heartbeat with every kiss of winter against his cheeks.

All in all, it wasn’t such a bad night for a walk.

And that was a very good thing, considering Jeongin didn’t really have anywhere to go. He wandered aimlessly down the aging sidewalks of east-side Tulsa, footsteps a percussive accompaniment to the songs of distant sirens and the occasional passing car. Every so often, he’d trudge past a group of teenagers up to no good or a beaten-down adult gripping a meager cache of groceries like a lifeline. If those suspicious eyes spotted his marred skin or slight limp, there was no acknowledgement. They knew him, and he knew them, and everyone knew that you kept your head down and your mouth shut around here.

Jeongin didn’t take any offense to that. Everyone wasting their lives away in this run-down shithole had their own problems to deal with, and the purple and black blossoming like flowers across his jawbone was his.

The exhaustion currently settling itself across his shoulders like a cat was another. He turned left on South Carthage, feet leading him down the same beaten path he’d trod a thousand times before. The long way, cutting across senile old Mrs. Danford’s overgrown garden. She could screech like worn-out brakes when she caught him, but the risk was worth avoiding the sight of his own darkened doorstep a while longer.

The old trainyard was silent and empty, as it had sat for as long as Jeongin could remember. Abandoned boxcars loomed out of the shadows like something that might have scared him when he was younger. The crown jewels of an industry town, before they were left to rust and rot and be tipped by disaffected midwestern youth with nothing else to do. Now they were as close to home as any of the other graffiti-lined dumping grounds that he called a bed more often than his own.

He picked his way through the darkness with a practiced foot that stumbled only once, on what felt like a bottle some drifter must have left behind in the days since the last incident. Jeongin’s favorite car was all the way in the back corner, tucked so far into the shadows that hardly anyone took the time to seek it out for vandalism or shelter. Someone had this time, it seemed, as new graffiti dripped large and bold from the siding. It was ugly.

Jeongin took a moment to look and listen, straining his senses for any sign that whoever had left their calling card was still around. The world sat still and quiet, and, satisfied that he was alone, he began the lengthy process of hauling his battered body up into the doorway.

With a hiss and a curse as his ribcage screamed in protest, Jeongin managed to situate himself just inside the opening. From here, he could see the entire yard spread out before him like a monarch looking over his decaying kingdom. Spindly fingers of rotten timber and corroded metal reached up towards the endless expanse of prairie sky as if calling for help. There were many reasons he found himself returning to this place time and time again, and most of them weren’t pretty.

The stars, though.

Those were nice.

Jeongin didn’t know much about the stars. He didn’t know much about much, really – bruises and busted lips and broken bones left him with a string of high school absences longer than the most disillusioned troublemakers could hope for. At this point in the year there was no real reason for him to attend at all. The look on his English teacher’s face when he’d showed up one day to find the class nearly done with a book he’d had no idea they were reading told him he was going to be held back this year anyways.

Again.

But even if he didn’t know how to pronounce the name of the guy who wrote _Romeo and Juliet_ or why he needed geometry to not go to bed hungry, he knew that being here, small and battered and alone under the thousand winking eyes of something he didn’t understand, made the world feel smaller. Quieter.

Jeongin wasn’t sure what being at peace felt like, and he didn’t think he ever would. But maybe this was close.

“Had a feeling I’d find you here.”

Jeongin jumped so hard the spike of pain in his abdomen provoked an embarrassingly pitiful whine. The newcomer hissed in sympathy.

“Sorry.”

Jeongin knew that voice, and he let the uninjured side of his head fall against the car’s doorframe as the stress bled from his body.

“Glory, Felix, scare me to death, why don’t you?” He groaned.

Felix snickered, hopping up beside him with an easy, painless movement Jeongin envied.

“Would that be the better option right now?” He asked, pulling a pack of cigarettes out of the pocket of his flannel.

Jeongin took the offered smoke gratefully, holding it out for Felix to light before bringing it to his lips and inhaling as deeply as he was able. His ribs and his lungs both revolted against the intrusion, but some of the tension he didn’t even realize he’d been holding slipped from his bones.

“You’re so goddamn addicted.” Felix laughed at the look of relief on his face, and Jeongin hit him.

“Remember who’s fault that is?” He grumbled.

Felix pulled one knee up to his chest and rested his elbow on it, blowing smoke in Jeongin’s face with no remorse.

“Tory Becker’s, one could say.”

“One could. I don’t.”

Tory Becker had been, as Felix had described it to Jeongin, “ _the love of my life_ ” for the summer between Jeongin’s sixth and seventh grade. And Tory Becker, according to Felix, would be _so_ much more impressed with him if he smoked cigarettes like the _real_ hoods did. Hoods like Felix’s older brother, who’d been at his third run in juvie at the time. She was one of _those_ girls.

But of course, Felix couldn’t pick up a new addiction all on his own, and that’s where Jeongin came in. The label “friend” may have been a bit presumptuous at the time – Jeongin was more of an _uninvited shadow_ who’d latched onto Felix the moment he’d met him on the first day of middle school. But one of the things kids learned quick on the east-side streets was the importance of a reputation, and even if the constant escort of a sixth grader didn’t look so tough, the admiration on Jeongin’s face counted for _something._ So Felix kept him around. And on that June evening Jeongin, a year younger and bright-eyed with just a little hero-worship for _the Felix Bang,_ didn’t take much convincing.

So they gagged on the foul taste of rebellion out behind the Wendy’s, Jeongin determined to show Felix that he was more than just an impressionable teenybopper trying to get in with the Bang brothers. When he managed to choke down an entire pack in a day and Felix looked at him like he’d never seen anyone cooler in his _life_ , well. Jeongin had never felt prouder. Or sicker.

In the end, Tory Becker _had_ been impressed and Felix _had_ gotten a girlfriend. And then, Jeongin had seen Felix cry for the first and only time in his life when Felix broke up with her because he realized a short skirt and a soft voice just didn’t do it for him. Jeongin had told him, bangs in his face and eyes on the floor, that he didn’t think birds were all that either, and had been elevated from tolerated acquaintance to best friend.

When Felix met him in the middle school parking lot the next day with a new pack of Lucky Strikes poking out of his pocket, Jeongin just offered a lighter.

They sat in silence for a moment, far enough from the city center that the only sounds were the chirping of crickets and the soft crackle of burning tobacco. Felix was facing Jeongin, but his eyes were trained on the stars, sliding over to sneak peeks only occasionally.

This was how Felix always was, and Jeongin was used to it – growing up on the streets didn’t make for much emotional vulnerability even between friends. Felix cared, Jeongin understood that, but sometimes he asked and sometimes he didn’t, and Jeongin understood that too.

Felix cleared his throat a little awkwardly, and when he spoke, his voice was deeper than usual.

“You okay?”

He still wasn’t looking at Jeongin, dark eyes watching the moon through a smoky exhale as though waiting on it to answer his question. Jeongin nodded anyways.

“Yeah. Just some bruised ribs, I think. The radio stopped working, so she threw it at me.”

Felix’s nose wrinkled, his full lips twisting into an ugly grimace. “Bitch.”

Jeongin remained silent. The warmth that swelled in his throat whenever Felix’s protective instincts reared their head was always tamped down by a defensiveness he couldn’t leave behind as easily as bloodstains.

He knew Felix could sense it, too, because he turned to meet Jeongin’s gaze head on.

“Don’t argue. Your mom sucks.”

Jeongin couldn’t help the little snort that escaped at the matter-of-fact tone, and a small smile curled over Felix’s lips as the threat faded from his eyes.

“I know.” Jeongin said softly, tossing his spent cancer stick to the ground and watching it spark out in the blackness.

He envied Felix, sometimes.

Felix never talked much about his home life, but Jeongin knew enough. Knew he lived alone with his older brother, whenever Chris was actually around. Knew his parents were _gone_ in a way Jeongin’s absent father wasn’t, leaving a legacy of scars on their walls and their kids from fighting Jeongin could only imagine. Knew Felix didn’t miss them, hated them both with a purity that Jeongin just couldn’t muster up when looking into his own mother’s eyes.

Was it easier that way? Would he ever find out?

There was quiet for a long moment as Felix watched him, eyes tracing the line of bruises down Jeongin’s jaw for long enough to make him squirm. Then, as if the conversation hadn’t happened at all, Felix slumped back against the frame of the carriage, ran a hand through his greasy red hair, and started talking.

“Anyways, I was down at Lonnie’s bar earlier hunting some action, and you know Gina? Blonde one? So apparently, she was out with-”

The warm feeling in Jeongin’s chest came back full force, and it had nothing to do with smoke. Felix may have been as emotionally constipated as anyone kicked in the teeth by east-side Tulsa, but he had a talent for reading people. Jeongin never had to say a word – Felix already knew what he needed, sometimes before Jeongin himself did. He was never anything but casual about it, and he’d deny it to the grave if anyone called him on it, but they both knew why Felix was the only one able to find Jeongin on nights like this.

Jeongin tuned back in to the flow of street gossip when he heard Felix say, “And guess what I just heard?”

“What?” He asked absentmindedly, eyes tracing new constellations in the night sky.

Felix sat up and leaned forward, eyes childishly wide. “ _Mike Jennings is gay_.”

“ _What?_ ” Jeongin spluttered, “For real?”

Felix nodded enthusiastically. “I heard old Cooper and Mrs. Brooks talking about it down at the five-and-dime. Said his dad caught him with a _prostitute_.”

Jeongin gaped. “No way. _Glory_.”

“Right?” Felix sounded delighted, and this time it wasn’t just by the drama.

Jeongin knew the feeling.

He didn’t need a perfect attendance record to know there was something wrong with them, him and Felix both. The kind of wrong that had led them to seek just a taste in Felix’s bedroom the day he broke Tory Becker’s heart, the kind of wrong that had pulled them back together behind closed doors ever since. The kind of wrong that didn’t _feel_ wrong, that felt like the swoop in Jeongin’s stomach when Felix laughed, but that he knew would be worth more than a beating if those closed doors ever opened.

Often, it felt like they were the only two people in the world who felt this way. Jeongin saw love at school, at the drive-in, on the street. Slicked-back hair and working boots walked hand-in-hand with a purse and a pleated skirt. Boys liked pretty _girls_ , like Tory Becker or Angelica Schafer or Chris Bang’s flavor of the week. Boys didn’t like flat chests and stubble and the gleam in their best friend’s eyes after he split his knuckles open in a street fight.

Except, sometimes they did. Like Jeongin, like Felix.

Like Mike Jennings.

“What happened to him?” Jeongin breathed, already preparing for the worst.

The grimace of displeasure that twisted Felix’s pretty features told him he was right to.

“Ran him off, of course. Dad told him if he ever came back he’d shoot him right there on the lawn.”

Jeongin drew in a sharp breath, and there was a beat of heavy silence. Such bitterness looked out of place on Felix’s soft face.

Mike Jennings was a north-side boy, all power and privilege and parents who came home at the end of the day. That didn’t change anything, it seemed.

“Of course, Cooper had a lot to say about that.” Felix snorted, voice light but a little strained.

“That old drunk? Of course he did.” Jeongin responded with good-natured disgust, fighting down the bile in his throat.

“ _It ain’t right, you know._ ” Felix slurred, and Jeongin didn’t even know someone could make a Texas accent sound that offensive. “ _God gave ‘im a cock and ‘es usin’ it like a broad!_ ”

Jeongin burst into cackles as the older boy made a very lewd gesture with the cigarette butt that was burning dangerously close to his fingers.

“It’s ‘cause I ain’t got no dad,” He piped up in a voice dripping with mock sincerity, “He woulda beat me into shape even better than mom does.”

It wasn’t funny, not really, but they were both howling. Times like these were the ones where Jeongin was truly glad to have made friends with someone whose life was as fucked up as his own – Felix _got_ it. And more importantly, he knew how to laugh at it.

“Nah,” Felix drawled, head lolling back against the carriage wall in a show of mock seductiveness as he finally dropped his spent smoke into the gravel below, “No amount of beatings could keep you away from all this.”

He was being playful, Jeongin knew, but the way Felix was looking at him from beneath hooded lids was bringing heat to his black and blue cheeks. Felix noticed, if the way his mocking grin shifted into something a little more genuine was any indication.

“You’re real pretty Felix, you know that?” Jeongin said softly, resting his chin in his hand.

He was, no matter how tough he tried to look. No amount of hair grease or leather jackets or split lips could hide his dainty features, his rounded cheeks and big eyes. Once, Jeongin had made the mistake of joking that Felix looked like a fairy, and he was a _fairy_. He didn’t make it again.

But Felix did look something close to ethereal in the starlight, especially with that blush on his face.

“Don’t call me that,” he whined, “I’m not your damn girlfriend.”

There was a wicked gleam in Jeongin’s eyes when he asked, “Then why are you on your knees for me all the time?”

Felix appeared to remember Jeongin’s injuries halfway through flinging himself forward to throttle him, and the course correction nearly sent him tumbling out of the car. Jeongin burst into painful giggles as the other boy gave him a baleful look from beneath his bangs.

“You’re goddamn lucky someone else got to you first.” He growled, flopping down beside Jeongin instead.

Jeongin dropped his head down onto the available shoulder, still smiling. Felix gave a long-suffering sigh before gingerly draping an arm around Jeongin’s neck. Jeongin melted into the embrace, tipping his chin back to face Felix as well as he was able. Shadows draped over Felix’s brow like a shroud, not quite dark enough to hide the fact that he was watching Jeongin with that strange look he got in his eyes sometimes. The one Jeongin couldn’t read.

At times like these, Jeongin thought Felix might see that look in his eyes too.

An expectant audience of stars winked behind Felix’s unkempt hair. The moonlight was glowing like a halo around his head, and Jeongin had never been to church but he wondered if this was close.

When Felix kissed him, it was soft and sweet and tasted like cigarettes. Jeongin should have been used to the feeling by now, really, because the years had gone by and he’d kissed more than Felix’s mouth but every time felt like the first one anyways. Not that there was much romance in that – the first time had been too much teeth and Felix’s tears smeared between their cheeks as the smell of weed wafted up from where Chris’ friends were laughing too loudly in the living room, but it still felt like finding himself and coming home and having some sort of reason.

Felix kissed him gently, like he was breakable, and Jeongin appreciated that because frankly, his ribs and jaw did not like this new situation at all. But Felix was all soft edges, really, nothing that ever dug in too hard, and if Jeongin could endure all the other pain he’d felt in his life he could sure as hell take this.

Their lips met once, twice, three times, as Felix drew Jeongin into his lap with the gentlest of hands, murmuring apologies into his mouth when Jeongin hissed in pain anyways. Felix’s body was as comfortable as his personality – bony and wiry, all street smarts and spotty paychecks, but Jeongin knew he wasn’t much better so he curled into the kindness he was being offered as well as he was able.

Felix buried his face in the little cowlick on the back of Jeongin’s head, breath too hot and too wet against his unwashed hair, and Jeongin allowed himself to take solace in the scent of motor oil and sweat woven into the ancient flannel.

“We’re gonna get out of here, someday.” Felix said into his hair.

“I know.” Jeongin replied.

He wasn’t sure when he fell asleep, but he knew he was looking at the stars.

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly, I'm not super happy with this but I was sitting on it trying to edit for weeks and finally just said fuck it. Any concrit is appreciated!


End file.
